New from Cambridge University Press!

Edited By Keith Allan and Kasia M. Jaszczolt

This book "fills the unquestionable need for a comprehensive and up-to-date handbook on the fast-developing field of pragmatics" and "includes contributions from many of the principal figures in a wide variety of fields of pragmatic research as well as some up-and-coming pragmatists."

"A unique view of language studies throughout the 20th and into the 21stcenturies: where the mainstream emphasis has been, what has been missing,and what remedies are needed. In other words, this book is a call for aparadigm shift in the study of oral communication. It is a must read forpeople interested in language use, as well as for specialists in languagestudies." - Camelia Suleiman, Ph.D., Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

"The authors have identified crucial theoretical and methodologicalassumptions that have hampered scholarship on language use. Their criticalassessment is grounded in nuanced theoretical analysis and rigorousempirical studies. As a result, they reveal the complexity, elegance, andmoral aspects of day to day dialogical communication." - Kevin P. Weinfurt, Ph.D., Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

In contrast to traditional approaches of mainstream psycholinguists, theauthors of Communicating with One Another approach spontaneous spokendiscourse as a dynamic process, rich with structures, patterns, and rulesother than conventional grammar and syntax. Daniel C. O’Connell and SabineKowal thoroughly critique mainstream psycholinguistics, proposing instead ashift in theoretical focus from experimentation to field observation, frommonologue to dialogue, and from the written to the spoken. They invoke fourtheoretical principles: intersubjectivity, perspectivity, open-endedness,and verbal integrity. Their analyses of historical and original researchraise significant questions about the relationship between spoken andwritten discourse, particularly with regard to transcription andpunctuation. With emphasis on political discourse, media interviews, anddramatic performance, the authors review both familiar and unexploredcharacteristics of spontaneous spoken communication, including:

*The speaker’s use of prosody*The functions of interjections*What fillers do for a living*Turn-taking: Smooth and otherwise*Laughter, applause, and booing: from individual listener to collectiveaudience*Pauses, silence, and the art of listening

The paradigm shift proposed in Communicating with One Another will interestand provoke readers concerned about communicative language use – includingpsycholinguists, sociolinguists, and anthropological linguists.